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Occasionally we do fun things like make funny faces from our food to encourage them to eat it all up! We also grow our own tomatoes which seems to encourage the girls to taste them as they have seen them through the whole magical process of growth. Pop is a total tomato addict in fact! I also find that cooking together, from scratch can be a good way for them to taste new things as they have been involved and feel some ownership of the meal! Pizzas with veggie toppings are particularly successful around here.
But I’ll admit that there are many days that Cakie will just turn up her nose at veggies, no matter what!
Have you got an idea to share?
Green Giant is offering one inspiring reader the chance to win a wonderful hamper full of vegetables from Abel & Cole as well as some Green Giant products, for just sharing a helpful tip for getting children to eat their veg! How brilliant is that?
Do you have any great ideas for encouraging your children to eat healthily? I would LOVE some tips and advice from you! Please leave me a comment (or indeed a concern/ question) below before November 14th and I will be choosing the most creative/ inspiring tip as the winner!
I can’t wait to read some of your ideas and start trying them out with my two girls.
You can find some great ideas for feeding kids their 5-a-day on the Green Giant Facebook page here.
Terms and Conditions:
For your chance to win an Abel & Cole vegetable box , write your best tips/hints/advice in the blogger comment box before the 14/11/2011. Entrants must be over 18 and residents of the UK or ROI – Prize is one Abel & Cole vegetable box (no cash alternative) -There will be 1 winner. The winning post will be decided based on the following criteria: uniqueness/creativity/originality. By entering the competition, you agree that your hint/tip may be shared on Green Giant’s Facebook page and used by Green Giant in any other media.
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I can’t wait to hear others’ suggestions! We’re not the best veggie eaters here… for Henry, any veggie that I cover in shredded cheese means he’ll gobble it up though. And we have a rule at the dinner table that I don’t care if they eat it all, but they need to at least try one bite. This usually makes him realize that it isn’t so bad.
George, he just eat anything and everything. He loves veggies! Green beans and peas especially! We could use that entire hamper full! 😀
Absolutely agree with the idea that if they see it grown and can help out with the growing process they are more interested in eating it. My girls help plant and grow lots of the veggies that we eat; green beans and tomatos often become an afternoon snack in the summer that they pick and eat right off the plant!
But ultimately I think having BOTH parents as good role models is key. I know quite a few families where one parents doesn’t eat the green stuff or any other veggies for that matter, which leads to the kids wondering why they have to. If both parents commit to being healthy eaters then you are setting your kids up for success!
And knowing how to cook veggies in lots of different and interesting ways can also help. You don’t want to present them with cooked green beans at every meal. Get creative and mix things up so that you are constantly showing them a new way to try the veggies.
Wish I was in the UK and could win this one! But thanks for the great post.
My baby loves v8 so he gets veggies with that. I also recommend adding cheese, giving them something to dip veggies into, pureeing the veggies and hiding them in other foods and veggie juice popcicles can sometimes work too.
Thanks for the great post!
Luckily my girls love their veggies but to get that extra serving in I do like what Amber suggested and puree a lot of veggies and put them in things. Like pureed spinach in spaghetti sauce or pureed cauliflower in mac and cheese etc. Another thing I find helpful is to be consistent with them, the girls always get a side of veggies at lunch and dinner and if we go out to eat we ask for veggies instead of fries
Great post! Can’t wait to read all the other clever ways to get children interested in veggies 🙂
If you separate your child’s foods on their plate (starch, protein, veg, etc.) then you are giving them more freedom to choose NOT to each one item or another. Mix up every meal- toss or stack their foods on top of each other. We gently remind our daughter that it is not good manners to pick through your food- and when everything is tossed together- its much more obvious when she is picking through it! We also offer her the option of shaking pepper, parmesan cheese, or drizzling a sauce on her meal as we serve it. She loves to “garnish” her meal and make it her own. Since we know she already likes the “garnish” she is much more likely to start shoveling in any new vegetable or protein without “examining”
When my kids balk at eating veggies, I tell them that we should always “eat the rainbow”….then we hunt through our food to find different colors to eat. For some reason, that works. 🙂
We take the kids to the market and get them to help pick out the produce. Princess Pea loves chatting with the market vendors and learning how to choose the ‘best ones’. Another way we can always count on is to give them soup loaded with veggies – our girls love soup and we can just add extra puréed veggies in their portions.
I let the children play and create with their food just like you do Anna. Exploration of the textures, smelling and maybe tasting in a playful way without pushing them. I many times bring home material from nature and together with my child we make the table beautiful, invite our neighbours to eat with us. Because eating should be a social and fun event, not because we have to do it 🙂
Lovely greetings Angelique
We don’t call them vegetables to get J to eat them – we have green balls, orange worms, green snacks, white trees and green trees, yellow hats and various other little names depending on what we are eating. It was the only way we could get him to eat anything as for a while he would only eat yoghurt.
Unfourtunately the growing didn’t work well with us – as when the tomatoes got to the small green ball stage J picked them all and declared he was going to eat the green balls
Love the ideas that people have already shared. I agree with the “if you grow it, they will eat it” theory. While my girls don’t eat everything we grow, they appreciate veggies more b/c they have to care for them. I have found that trying to hide veggies doesn’t work with my kids…we just eat them as is…but they do love to dip them in some sort of salad dressing!
My son has always been one to eat his veg quite well but we found getting him to eat fruit difficult, he eats more fruit now hes at nursery and sees other children eating it! I love my veg and I think because he sees me eating lots hes quite happy to try! There are some things I have to hide though like brocolli but just mash it up with some fish pie and he eats it all!
We’ve also discovered that if you grow it yourself, the kids are more willing to try it. Another trick is to stick it on a pizza. We love spinach on pizza!
Your posts make ME want to gobble up my veggies! I’ve found the best way to help my kids choose healthy foods is to plant a garden. Both my one year old and 5 year old LOVE veggies and will often eat veggies from the garden for breakfast. Here is a recent post. The video really shows how my son feels about veggies! http://theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.com/2011/10/kids-in-garden-growing-peas-texas-40.html
Oh my, such fab ideas everyone.. mmmh… I have to say, my kids are quite good at eating their veg and greens… and Sweetcorn and Peas are top of the “will always eat” list. So. Uhm. We are happy!
Love your plate face!
Maggy
(PS having said that… when we “played” with our food, it went down surprisingly well.. as per our food creatures post!! http://www.redtedart.com/2011/10/19/kids-craft-food-creatures/)
I have a few things to contribute, as the mother of three kids who all love veggies. First and maybe most important is, don’t assume that your child will have the same taste in veggies as you do. Things that you might consider weird, yucky, your child might actually adore! And just because you like your veggies cooked a particular way does not mean your child will. So don’t be afraid to try new things and new ways of cooking.
The second thing is that my son will eat anything that he’s helped to prepare in the kitchen, sitting on the counter. I let him “help” with the food prep, and let him taste everything along the way. While it might be scary if it suddenly appears on his dinner plate, it’s not scary at all on the kitchen counter, where he can nibble it all he wants.
Not very exciting, but ‘keep offering’ is what’s worked here. My eldest has claimed at various points to dislike almost everything I’ve ever served up for her, and each time I’ve said casually, “Ok. You just have to try a little bit, then.”… and kept on serving it up to her.
We had a massive breakthrough with mushrooms, which she tried (again, for the millionth time) and suddenly grinned and said, “I really love it!” I am not a big fan of ‘tricks’ with food, to be honest. I just keep sticking it on a plate and telling her she has to try a tiny bit of everything.
When my daughtet suddenly went off carrots we pretended one day that princess belle had grown some carrots for my daughter and had left them all in sainsburys…it worked my daughter was so excited that princess belle had grown the carrots and then we ‘rang’ princess belle to say she had eaten it and princess belle was soooo happy. Worked a treat for us. Now Tinkerbell and Cinderella grow my daughters veg too. LOL.
Joanne
I find as many ways as possible to make veg fun! This year my 9 year old son planted, grew and harvested his own his own carrots and potatoes. We play a game called “name the veg” where I get a box with all sorts of veg in it and he has to try and name them even the more unusual stuff and we also taste them. This goes down very well.
By the way I didn’t know how to do a URL or even what some of the other profile options were. I’m on facebook as Heather Goodchild or twitteras HeatherKayG/Heather Goodchild. Sorry I’m not that great at technology but follow you on facebook!
We have found that it is best to try new vegetables/vegetables about which the child it uncertain
– at a time when there is little stress
– in a soup which the child helps to make.
If the vegetables are appreciated in soup then they will often be tried in another context but a pureed soup does remove the issue of different textures and simplify the newness to taste alone.
My kids both love veggies, but to keep it fun and interesting, I sometimes serve them their vegetables in an ice cream cone! 🙂 They love it.
The best way I’ve found to get a ton of veggies into my own kids, and my daycare kiddies, is to make a spaghetti sauce with EVERYTHING tossed it. I saute onions, garlic, mushrooms, sliced carrots and celery, red and green peppers etc. Then I addd the sauce and puree it all until it’s smooth. I like to add cooked ground beef after the sauce has been pureed as well. All the kids LOVE this sauce, and the daycare parents ask for the recipe because their children enjoy it so much.
Hello,
My kids pick out whatever veg they recognise so its best to chop things smaller when ever we can.
Lasagne for example, lots of small bits of veg, and just some of it chunky still.
Also my sons happily eat mashed spuds sooooo take advantage. we often sneak in something else like swede or parsnips to try to veg some extra vitamins and whatnot in.
@buttonf1fan
Hi
So firstly, I have to say that I absolutely love your blog. I’m really thrilled that you won the MAD blog of the year.
I wrote a post about helping your children eat more fruit and vegetables a while back. (This is the link if you’re interested – http://www.evidencebasedmummy.com/?p=177) The journals I’ve read would suggest that the keys are taking time to educate your child about the importance of eating fruit and vegetables and making sure fruit/veg are readily accessible.
I talk to my son about the importance of eating fruit and vegetables and I make sure we have fruit and vegetables out on the kitchen counter at all times as well as on the plate at meal times. Not very creative but the good old fruit bowl is a winner.
We hide vegetables in things like pizza toppings, bit of spinach and carrot got well in the tomato sauce and then lots of veggies on top as well. They love it! x
@mummymummymum
When my kids balk at eating veggies, I tell them that we should always “eat the rainbow”….then we hunt through our food to find different colors to eat. For some reason, that works. 🙂
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